England’s Dawid Malan and Mark Stoneman play football during nets. (Source: Reuters)
England announced the squad for the upcoming three-match Test series against West Indies with Mark Stoneman as the only change after the series against South Africa. The Surrey opener will be replacing struggling Keaton Jennings.
With Toby Roland-Jones keeping his place as the third seamer, captain Joe Root said on Sky Sports, “Chris Woakes and Mason Crane are the two guys who will miss out. I think it’s a great opportunity for the rest of the guys to experience a pink ball Test match for the first time and we’re really excited.”
The skipper added that Woakes needed more time to regain fitness. “He will have definitely wanted to play here but with the lack of game time he’s had, it felt like another week of loading up on overs making sure he’s absolutely ready coming back from a serious injury is important,” Root said. “That’s where we’re at at the minute and I think Toby deserves his opportunity.”
Stoneman will be making his debut in England’s first day-night Test match. “He’s obviously got a huge amount of runs under his belt, this season in particular, and in previous seasons as well. He’s got a well-rounded game, he’s a bit more experienced having played a lot of county cricket and I’m excited to see him hopefully take his opportunity.”
Having said that, Root was not sure how long Stoneman would have to make his mark. “Who knows. Ideally you want someone to come in and set
the world alight and their career move forward from there. I’d like to think he would get a very good opportunity and some good game time with England.
“Of course you want it (the top order) to be settled. You never want to go into any series with the guys out of form or under pressure but that’s one of the challenges of Test cricket and generally as a side we’ve responded quite well to that in the past. This is a great opportunity for him (Stoneman) to go out
and show everyone how good a player he is.”
